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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Saturday, April 25, 2009

I usually try to feature holiday Wrecks on the holiday in question, but when I was out of town recently I missed a couple. So, for all you administrative professionals out there who had to order your own cakes last Wednesday, this post is for you.

Ok, so it's not horrible, but I do have two issues with it:

First, as submitter Danielle C. points out, the girl is green. "I'm not sure why," she writes, "but I've narrowed it down to either motion sickness or a subtle witch insult."

(Ah, but there is one more possibility, Danielle: She could be an Orion slave girl! Granted, that might be construed as an even bigger insult than the witch thing, but any Trek reference is a good one in my book.)

And secondly, this cake doesn't actually say anything. No "Thanks" or "We appreciate you" or "Today, skip the collating!" - nada. So in essence really all this cake says is "You work here, and we wanted cake." How...touching. I'm sure all the admins working there were inspired to new heights of administrative professionalism. Really.

'Course, considering these next examples I can see the logic behind a writing-less cake:

And Mary Pat, since I know all the glass-half-full people are going to point it out anyway: Those flowers ARE quite pretty, don't you think?

This Wreck, however, has only one redeeming factor:

And that is it's made of chocolate.

Yep, that plastic butterfly makes a heroic effort, but in the end still can't save this squiggly monochromatic mass from the Wreck heap. I can't actually say it's misspelled, though, because every time I try to decipher the squiggles the eyestrain gives me a headache. (And if that's a decorator tactic, it's brilliant. Brilliant, I say!)

Holy crap.Holy, HOLY C-R-A-P CRAP!!!!That admin being (I remember when they were called "secretaries") is --no question about it--VERY, VERY good at what she does. She is able to conduct business without a single key on her keyboard! Without blinking a pastel eye! She also must be left-handed (or magic) because I don't see a mouse. Her headset is growing straight out of her head. I'm guessing Borg.

I also maintain that anyone who IS one, EMPLOYS one, or is making a cake DEDICATED to one, should at the very least be able to SPELL the damn word "professional" correctly. Crap like this makes my *crabby* cells riot violently in my brain. Good thing these are funny! =^><^=

I'm baffled. Maybe it's because I am on the other side of the pond. But are you saying that there is a specific day in America where cake is given to secretaries??? Sorry - administrative professionals? An *actual day* like Mothering Sunday or Valentines? I mean, do bosses give their employees cards as well as cake? Or the day off? Wow!

We Brits don't have this. I guess our cynicism is a successful shield against the marketing ploy of greetings card companies . . . or maybe we don't appreciate our 'administrative professionals' enough . . . or maybe we appreciate them *every* day, not just one prescribed to us by Hallmark. . .

And do you celebrate *everyones* jobs? I mean, there are more than 365 professions out there so the cake and card companies must be doing orders every single day of the year and doubling up too, no doubt, at busy times like Christmas . . . Do you have a list of days like this? "Happy Waitressing Day" "Every Best Wish to my local Fishmonger" "Felicitations to you on Bricklayer's Day" . .. that sort of thing.

Wow - no wonder there are so many cake wrecks out there. My horizons are well and truly widened! Thanks!

John - I didn't know that we had such arcane holidays. I guess that I need to add those to my calendar! What does one do to celebrate 8-track day? Presumably on bean day, you eat them - or is that you don't - you free them?? You're FREE, have cake!You definitely have cake for Virus appreciation day.

Sadly, I think we have Administrative "Proffional" Day" because they would never get appreciated without it.

Apr 11- Eight-track tape dayOct 3- Virus Appreciation dayJan 6- Bean day"================================= Virus Appreciation day?!Good Heavens--you weren't making it up!!! (I Googled it while nibbling on a grain of salt.) Now there is time to plan accordingly. For me, that means doing absolutely nothing--but thanks just the same! The world is a better place for having so many Important Days to acknowledge and make cakes for!!>^~~^<

Yes, we are all *just* like James Bond characters over in the UK! You've obviously visited our fair shores . . I even have a cat like Q's . . . .

But hey - how's this for wierdness - my birthday is on January 6th and my daughter's name is Bean!! So, now I shall be able to raise another glass in honour of the American Bean Day. How jolly will that be!!!????

Oh, hang on a tick - you're joking, aren't you?

(confused) Aren't you??

(thinking) Oh, any excuse for a cake, it would seem - and I expect beans (in all their variety) would be a particularly easy shape to bodge . . .

(My daughter isn't officially, birth-certificatley called Bean but it's what everyone calls her. My birthday *is* January 6th, just so you remember for next year . . .)

"So, for all you administrative professionals out there who had to order your own cakes last Wednesday, this post is for you."

Yes, that was me. Not a cake, per se, but I was asked to send a building-wide email thanking our administrative assistants for all they do. It made me want to write, "And you know they're the ones who do all the work around here when they are the ones sending this email!"

The best part about it is if it were the administrative "proffesional" her/himself who had ordered that cake, they'd would have been looked down upon for the misspelling. (Take it from an actual administrative professional.)

And Cake #3 is the most "got milk" moment I've seen on your site to date.

I just thought the "girl" on cake #1 was green due to political correctness. After all, if you have several Administrative Professionals of various ethnics around, you don't want to pick just one to honor on a cake.Or maybe ...I was going to reference Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage here with his description of the green-complected Mildred, but she's a waitress--which may have something to do with serving cake...This site is doing strange things to my mind.

And do you celebrate *everyones* jobs? I mean, there are more than 365 professions out there so the cake and card companies must be doing orders every single day of the year and doubling up too, no doubt, at busy times like Christmas . . . Do you have a list of days like this? "Happy Waitressing Day" "Every Best Wish to my local Fishmonger" "Felicitations to you on Bricklayer's Day" . .. that sort of thing.

I teach 7 and 8 year olds. Each morning our journal entry is a wierd fact or holiday for that date. Yes, you will be surprised how many obsure holidays we have, many of which have been cited by Acts of Congress. Yes, we can't balance the budget, but we can proclaim Jell-o Week or Pancake Day. I will abstain from the Larry Craig Make a New Friend in the Bathroom Day or Buy a Seat from Blagojevich "Senate Seat" Sale Day.

Ha. When I worked as an AA, I got flowers and a card *and* taken out to lunch at a very exclusive restaurant. I was told I deserved it for being the best assistant she'd ever had. 2 months later, I was let go. Shrug. She had issues. And I got 4 months off with unemployment, thanks to her!

Back when I was an Administrative Assistant (it was called a legal secretary back then!) I was taken to lunch at an expensive restaurant, had a few beer with my meal and followed it all up with a fabulous chocolate fondue. I really thought it was a bonus at the time...I had no idea I was supposed to have CAKE!! WTF? I got totally ripped off!!!

hilarious. reminded me of my days as an admin -- i hated Admin. Proffinal's week/day/whatever. I was forced-*forced*-to have lunch out with my boss and another admin with whom I hated working. I would have much preferred one of these wrecks.

On the third cake (and I can't believe no one else has commented on this...) besides the misspellings, and the butterfly... there are two plastic flowers. One in the upper left and one int eh lower right, barely hanging on over the cut area.

And? The frosting might be chocolate, but like another commenter pointed out, that last one is white on the inside. Bah!

(Great blog, Jen, been reading you since I found you on SGC Sweets day.)

"Ann-Marie said...Oh the irony from Jo UK, a post about incorrect spelling and she has managed to completely booboo on the word weirdness."

It was a typo, probably as a result of my fast yet fat little fingers being used to the 'i-before-e' combination, even though my brain (you see, I could have said brian there, just to confuse you further) actually knows how to spell the word.

(Word verification = 'syclogst' which, I believe, would be what your local cake-wrecker would ice onto some luridly coloured and overly floral cake on the day when one has recognise the hard work by one's shrink - "Happy Syclogst Day!"

(oh, and before Ann-Marie pipes up again, here in the UK, we have a 'u' in 'coloured' and use the 'ise' rather that 'ize' at the end of words . . )

Cool right? I prefer to think you were simply testing this theory with your spelling gaffe.

On another note, I think you should be an author. You may not think you'll have anything interesting to write about, but I am confident it will be written well and with a certain sass and vigor which you seem to possess in abundance.

The chocolate cake would definitely help! I'm guessing the problem was that the administrative professionals didn't order their own cakes and this was the best the rest of the staff could do without them! So, really, it's a hidden compliment!

My mom, who is the admin. asst. to a fire chief and his two deputies, informed me that the lady on the cake was green because it was Earth Day, as well as being Administrative Professionals Day. Interesting theory; let's hope the decorator actually put that much thought into the cake.

I am so very disappointed in my fellow Trekkers on here. The Administrative Professional on the first cake is obviously a Caucasoid Vulcan. Their copper based blood gives lighter skinned Vulcans a green tinge.

errm, umm, I hate to disappoint. Witches do not have green skin. *looks down at white-white self* But we do have a predilection for cakes and ale. (usually mead, actually.) So if you're up for a Witches' Day, I'd like dark chocolate and either a glass of mead or a Guinness. XD *slurp*

When I worked for a city government they had a press conference to announce the arrival of new garbage trucks. The mayor put on a hard hat and threw out the ceremonial first bag of trash then he rode on the little ledge on the back of the truck (around the block). They asked all of the employees in the building to come to the lobby to hear the speech and show up in the news footage . They has punch and cake - a big chocolate sheet cake decorated with the logo -a stylized image of the trash hauler that was on the uniforms of the department. Underneath this image on the cake in large letters was BUREAU OF SOLID WASTE . Yum, appetizing!

The bakery would make it "Secretary's Day". On administrative professionals day in our office (large accounting firm) everyone who is in Internal Firm Services (i.e not an accountant) got invited to a breakfast which was served to us by partners wearing aprons. They even came around to warm up our coffee too many times like annoying wservers who were trying too hard.

When I saw the first cake I immediately thought of Scooby-doo. She looks like she belongs on an episode with those meddling kids chasing behind her. Maybe, she is the secretary to the Hanna Barbera studios.

I like how you can hear the little wheels turning in the cake decorator's head for the second cake. "Proffes - oh, I'm not gonna have enough room - maybe I can convert that 'es' into 'io' - Proffional! Meh, good enough."

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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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